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Design and Implementation of Barcoded RFID tags for modern

abattoirs

S.Thangalakshmi, M.K.Muju

Abstract—:RFID is the next generation wireless communication technology applicable to various areas. We have imple-
mented a passive Radio frequency identification system at Ghazipur Slaughter House, Delhi , India for automatic identifica-
tion of animal parts. The goal of this RFID project is to understand the limitations and benefits of the deployed RFID tech-
nology especially with regard to assessment of how the technology could be used to improve the identification system. There
were certain technical limitations with the deployed RFID technology, 1D barcode technology was used to overcome these.
This system is used to track more than 5000 animals in the abattoirs from the entry point upto the dispatch point and it also
reduces the operational costs .In this paper we examine the RFID technology including the rational for selecting the specific
technology for this project , the installation process and the benefits and limitations of the technology as well as the role of
barcode technology to overcome the limitations of the chosen RFID system.
Index Terms— Abattoirs,RFID, S2000 readers , VB.net,wedge transponders.

——————————  ——————————

1 INTRODUCTION

T he guiding principles of the food processing industry are

food safety and operational efficiency. According to the
U.S. department of Commerce Industry Report[4], the food
manufacturing industry transforms livestock and agricultural
products into products for intermediate or final consump-
tion. According to this report the industry invests heavily in
technology and increased automation and production im-
provements have allowed companies to increase output
while relying on fewer employees. Employment in the in-
dustry declined 5% from 1996 to 2007, decreasing from 1.56
million to 1.5 million. The Bureau of Labor statistics expects
the overall wage and salary employment in food manufac-
turing to experience little or no change over the 2006-16
period compared with 11% employment growth projected
for the entire economy in US.
Food manufacturer continue to invest in greater automation
in manufacturing process. Budgeted spending for plant
equipment, upgrades, computers and automation remains at
steady levels and manufacturers are adding additional
process to address concern with ensuring food safety. In-
creased use of automation and innovation in the manufactur-
ing process has affected employment in the manufacturing
sector to some extent.
According to Food Engineering, key issues for plant manu-
facturer include plant technology improvements and auto-
mation, consolidation, energy costs and usage, consumer
demand for healthier and more nutritious products and con-
tinuous improvement programs.
Use of RFID Tags is still limited in the food manufacturing
industry due to its prohibitively high cost. According to
Ryan Charles [2] the technology consists of tagging pallets
with RFID tags to track goods through the supply chain
. mandated by FDA.
from the factory floor to store. And according to a 2006 food
engineering survey, 40 percent of respondents indicated that
their companies either initiated or were investing already in
RFID tags initiatives.
Changes happen slowly in this industry and has often been
in response to a major catastrophe . Some examples of pros-
pective dangers in food industry are the E.coli infection of
spinach leaves in September 2006 in U.S. which made fresh
spinach to disappear from grocery store shelves and cost the
spinach industry as much as $74 million. Another example is
that of mad cow disease found in U.S. in 2003. Item level
tagging has the potential to increase food safety and cut
costs in the food supply chain by improving stock manage-
ment , expanding theft controls and expediting the retail
check out process . Bio – terrorism is the biggest threat fac-
ing any nation today. For example, a common food ingre-
dient such as stabilizer or taste enhancer , getting contami-
nated at the place of its origin with a substance such as anth-
rax and distributed . It could be mixed with a few ingre-
dients at one food plant , sent to another and mixed with
more ingredients and end up at the final manufacturer where
boxes of cake mix or macaroni and cheese are produced and
also many processed foods have a shelf life of a few years or
more , making it even more difficult to find every contami-
nated box . RFID tags could trace the history of every ingre-
dient in a package of food and RFID readers could scan
those tags quickly, getting data into investigators hands
much faster . That capability alone could prevent widespread
illness and save lives next time contaminated food ends up
on consumer’s table.
Many food manufacturers have begun implementing proce-
dures and technologies to improve food safety, following the
recommendations of FDA (Food and Drug Administration),
even though neither the technology nor the procedures were
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In this paper we focus on passive RFID system that has
been successfully implemented to address parts identifica-
tion within an abattoir. In section II we discuss the problem
and the specified solution using RFID. In section III we dis-
cuss the selection criteria used for the RFID system imple-
mented in our study and we present the chosen system in
section IV. The application software designed for this appli-
cation is discussed in section V .Some limiting issues are
overcome with the use of 1D barcode system to augment the
RFID system. The 1D barcode system is discussed in section
VI along with the result of implementation The implemented
system is only the first phase of a system being investigated
to improve operational efficiency. We draw the relevant con-
clusion and future scope of RFID in section VII.
2 IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM FOR ABAT-
TOIRS
2.1 Problem definition: The Ghazipur slaughter house lo-
cated in New Delhi ,India is a multicrore plant owned by
MCD (Municipal Corporation of Delhi) and leased to M/S
Frigorifico Allana Limited , where slaughtering of animals
(goat, sheep and buffalo ) is done for domestic consumption
and also for export to international market. An average of
5000 live stock (Sheep/Goat & Buffalo/Buffalo Calf ) enters
the Slaughter House per day and this is likely to increase in
the future as the volume of animal handled by the slaughter
house may increase every year.
There are three separate slaughtering sections which per-
forms the slaughter process as per the accepted norms and
rituals by MCD and Community. These are: three separate
slaughter process which are as follows
 Jhatka Slaughter Line, according to Hindu rituals
 Zibaha / Halal Slaughter Line according to muslim
rituals
 Buffalo Slaughter Line
Now the problem that arises here is that the animals slaugh-
tered by different methods should not be mixed and also the
supplier who gives his animal at the entrance want a genuine
method of verifying that whether he has received all the
parts of the same animal which he has submitted at the en-
trance . So a genuine method of addressing this problem is
RFID , which is also complemented by 1D barcode identifi-
cation .
2.2 Proposed solution:
For each line one registration counter will be held and once
the animal is received at any Slaughter line , person sitting
in registration counter will issue the bunch of tags in which
one tag is parent and remaining all child tags. These tags
will be put in small pouch and hanged to the animal. The
child tags will be mapped to parent tag which contains the
owner information. The parent tag colour and child tag col-
our will be different, so that the floor people can easily iden-
tify the child tag and parent tag. Once the tagging is done,
animal moves to the Lairage area, meant for the observation
of the animals and preliminary check-up of the animals.
Once the animal accepted fit for slaughtering after initial
inspection it moves to the entry gate for Slaughter hall
50
meant for Slaughtering process. Inside the slaughter hall, at
first step itself animal is treated with stunning for making it
unconscious to minimize any pain it may suffer during
slaughtering process.
After the sterilization process animal is hanged to the over-
head conveyor belt from its legs and moved to the next stage
where decapitation of the animal is done using state of art
machines by Slaughter man.
After the decapitation process, other body parts are removed
from the body and kept aside in a trolley; it will be tagged
by the slaughter man. These tags will be taken from the
bunch of tags which is actually hanged to the animal. These
tags are called as child tags. These items will be handed
over to the owner of the live stock at the later stage.
The carcass contains the Parent tag and remaining child
tags will be tagged to the different parts of the animal
The carcass is then moved to the next stage for manual in-
spection. This has to be done by authorized veterinary offic-
er / doctor who declare the meat fit for human consumption
after physical examination of the carcass as per the set rules
and regulations. This doctor will have one HHT (Hand Held
Terminal) and scan the tag and update the server.
If under any circumstances the meat is found to be not fit for
human consumption due to any reason, it is moved to a sep-
arate chamber meant for the collection of such carcass, for
the purpose of the dispose off including all other part of an-
imal segregated at other stages, via accepted and set rules
and bylaws of the MCD. The carcass found fit for the human
consumption moves to the washing stage. The carcass is
washed using water jets; without touching the carcass by
hand directly.
After washing of the carcass, it is moved to the cold storage
location and hanged to the roller hooks fixed to the rails,
which are hanging from the roof of the room.
Parallel to this, other body parts collected from the line and
sent for washing are kept in trolley and sent to the cold sto-
rage area via separate route.This whole process take approx-
imately 3 minutes for Sheep / Goat if plant is operational on
its full strength, having no unwanted interruption or delay
due to any reasons.
2.3 Dispatch Process:
Dispatch activity will consist of identify owner, identify
items, pick and hand over. Each person will contain a
HHT(Hand Held Terminal ) and enter the tag number
present with the owner in the HHT and the interrogator will
try to communicate with the parts tag and display ,how
many parts are available in the vicinity .The parts will then
be collected and handed over to the original owner.
.
3 TECHNOLOGY SELECTION CRITERIA
The application identified in section II require a system that
can automatically identify large animal parts at a range of 1-
2 meters with high reliability and in real time .The read
range and real time requirements can be met with passive
RFID systems only through an extensive and intrusive read-
er deployment . Active RFID systems can provide a signifi-
cantly greater performance level than can passive RFID sys-
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tems and they can meet the performance requirements with
only a minimal reader deployment but at a high cost com-
pared to passive systems.
There are many different attributes of passive RFID systems.
The selection criteria we have used for selecting an opti-
mized RFID system for SHMS are delineated in this section.
A. Tag size
Different assets require different size and type tags, based on
physical restrictions and material properties. Here the tag
size can be large (2” x 4”). The tags are to be hanged around
the neck of the animals so small size tags are not preferred.
For this application tags are to be made on hard mould plas-
tic since they are open to water and rugged environment.
B. Tag Density
As we were developing our specifications, we noticed that
we could have a large number of tags within a small space
.We were interested in a system which can track atleast 200
items concurrently if not more within a 5m by 5m space.
C. User Interface
Four different user interface are created for four main de-
partments in the slaughter house, they are Lairage subsystem
which is the entry point, slaughter line subsystem, chiller
room subsystem and dispatch subsystem.
D. Installation
The installation cost of a system can vary substantially de-
pending on the facility type and technology being imple-
mented. For some older facilities, pulling new cables are
very expensive due to limited crawl space as well as un-
friendly environments. The retrofit installation requirement
is for systems that require the least amount of additional
installed readers while providing as complete a
coverage as possible .
E. Return-on-Investment (ROI)
As In.K.Mun [5] have mentioned that it is difficult to calcu-
late the ROI of a new technology, it is important to estimate
a realistic ROI to understand the economic benefits of the
technology. For most Processing industry, Identification
system based on passive RFID has a good ROI with a typi-
cal payback period estimated at less than three years.
4 SELECTED SYSTEM
Here for this application the selected tag / transponder is
wedge transponder. 64 bit Read/Write device: RI-TRP-
W9WK whose working frequency is 135 kHz. The Trans-
ponder in a wedge shape package is a key product in low
frequency RFID systems that can be used for a variety of
applications
For this particular application the selected antenna system is
R1-ANT-G02E (series 2000) antennas, whose operating
temperature range is -30˚C to 60˚C as the products will be
stored at around -18˚C and the dimensions are
(200X200X25) mm
Operating Principle The antenna has two tasks in the Iden-
51
tification system:1. Send an energizing signal to the trans-
ponder. 2. Receive the resulting ID signal from the trans-
ponder In this work, the modules of the fixed and handheld
readers, we select are Series 2000 reader (R1-RFM-007B) .
The portable terminals have both RFID and barcode scan-
ning capabilities. These readers made by Texas Instruments
can handle all RF and digital functions required in order to
communicate with wedge transponders selected for this ap-
plication.
When a transponder is to be read, the reader sends out a
134.2 kHz power pulse lasting approximately 50 ms to the
antenna. The field generated by this transponder that is tuned
to the same frequency. This received energy is stored in a
small capacitor within the transponder. When the power
pulse has finished, the transponder immediately transmits its
data back to the reader, using the energy stored within its
capacitor as the power source. Figure 1 shows the workflow
sequence in abattoirs while using Slaughter House Manage-
ment System (SHMS).
Figure 1 Workflow diagram
5 SOFTWARE USED
The application software and the graphical user interface are
designed using VB.net (Visual Basic. Net)for the
SHMS(Slaughter House Management System). The re-
quirements will be one or more host computers including
server, SQL server ,IIS (Internet Information Server ), Dot-
net Framework ,Crystal reports ,Browser –Internet Explorer
version 6.0 or above.
One is that the application software on the client computer
communicates with S2000reader by calling functions of na-
tive dynamic link library. TI provides program libraries,
feisc.dll and fecom.dll, which help to integrate RFID reader
into SHMS and support the functionality of the reader. The
fecom.dll supports the serial interface communication. To-
gether with fecom.dll, feisc.dll makes it possible to run a the
protocols of the reader The client application is written with
VB.net on the Microsoft Windows platform, so we can copy
the corresponding library functions into the Windows system
directory. When the application works, it open the serial port
and initialize communication parameters, then it creates a
reader object which can control the reader and gather data
from it. The other is that we set a RFID middleware sever to
link the readers and client applications. The RFID middle-
ware is based on three components: reader interface compo-
nent, event management component, application manage-
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ment component.
RFID MIDDLEWARE
Reader interface component should support many types of
RFID Devices, and it should be component-oriented and
provide uniform function interfaces. Reader interface com-
ponent is composed of reader profile, protocol processor,
connection management, event generator. Reader profile
manages the data on the registration of the readers deployed.
Protocol processor functions like protocol interpreter be-
tween different readers and middleware.
Once the slaughtering animals reach the slaughter house,
they get registered into the database with all the relevant
details. During the slaughtering process, each body part of
the animals is tagged with one or more RFID tags. These
tags contain information about the animal and its body-parts
and help in uniquely identifying each part when required.
The process for tagging the body-parts of an animal is pre-
defined in the application as per the slaughterhouse regula-
tion and practice. Handheld readers are used for recording
details of ante-mortem and post-mortem inspection and also
during the dispatch process. Desktop readers are used for
customer and animal registration.
The Server application runs to maintain the complete details
of the slaughter house activities, implementing different
access levels and restrictions in seeing or using the informa-
tion. In addition, the application includes a reporting module
for generating various types of reports based on parameters
or specific report filters given by the end users.
. This application can be extended to export section of the
FIGU
FIGURE 2 RFID MIDDLEWARE
To use RFID in our system, our application should com-
municate with hardware device, not with an application.
So something is indispensable to interpret requests and
responses by the control of hardware between RFID de-
vices and user application software. General RFID system
consists devices, application and middleware. To ensure
the system robustness, the backup solution works if the
RFID middleware server fails. We design extra program
to connect RFID readers to the client application not via
middleware of server but by calling the functions of the
native dynamic link library.
6 1D BARCODES
The Barcode system is used as a Backup system for RFID
52
implementation. It is mainly used in case there is a network
failure, and also a complement support for the new technol-
ogy until it is proved that RFID can operate as a standalone
system.
RESULT OF IMPLEMENTATIONS
1. By the implementation of this system the company has
reduced the unwanted movement of shopkeepers in search
of their own individual animal parts.
2. Cross contamination has been almost reduced to 0%.
3. It is accepted by the company as an easy way to deliver
the spare parts along with the carcass.
4. Labor requirement at the dispatch point has reduced by
50%.
5. It is time saving, the wait time for the customer has been
reduced by 50%.
6. It is a hygienic method
7. Processing speed has been raised since segregating the
spares of animals has become easy which was a time con-
suming job previously. Original slaughter line speed is
3000 animals per shift , but the company was able to reach
only 800-900 animals due to identification delay but after
the implementation of SHMS the plant has almost reached
its full capacity of around 2800 animals per shift which is
a drastic increase in processing speed.
7 FUTURE WORK
plant if the material is RFID tagged then entire supply chain
backtracking is possible . The future of RFID seems to be
very bright with so many applications projected for the fu-
ture ,a few of which are e-passport, RFID on currency notes
, human implants of RFID , etc.
CONCLUSION
The aim of this work is to achieve higher work efficiencies
and also to drive the handling cost down by reducing the
labour costs . The RFID and the barcode systems are the key
factors in optimization of the identification system. The
thoughtful use of 1D barcodes in conjunction with the Pas-
sive RFID management system can enhance the effective-
ness of the SHMS with limited impact on operations at mi-
nimal expense, by providing data-rich environment. This
identification system can be applied for any process industry
with a little alteration .The application software designed
combined both RFID and barcode techniques. The pilot
project proved that work efficiency improved with the im-
plementation of SHMS.
.
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S.Thangalakshmi : The author did her Bachelor of Engineering

from Arulmigu Kalasalingam college of engineering (formerly affi-
liated to Madurai Kamaraj University),Madurai , India, in 2001. She
is currently pursuing her Masters in Automation and Robotics from
Gautam Budh University (formerly UP Technical University). She is
also working as Assistant Professor in electronics and communica-
tion engg department in Ajay Kumar Garg Engineeering College ,
Ghaziabad , Uttar Pradesh, India. Her subject interests are Satellite
Communication, Automation and Robotics.

Dr. Mohan Krishan Muju.: The author received his doctoral degree
in engineering from Indian Institute of Technology,Kanpur in 1976
where he worked for 35 years as faculty member.He is currently
Professor Emeritus in Ajay Kumar Garg Engineering College , Gha-
ziabad , India.He has authored more than 60 papers in international
journals .His interests are Robotics ,Manufacturing systems, Com-
puter Aided Design for different applications.He has been a visiting
professor at St Cloud State University ,USA,(2000-2001), Iowa State
University (1995-1996), University of Puerto Rico(1989-1991).
.